Jarvis too hot as Valley End win village title

Valley End 195 for 6 (Young 66, Hadfield 3-34) beat Woodhouse Grange 171 (Burdett 59, Jarvis 3-27, Nevin 3-38) by 24 runs
Scorecard

Valley End beat Woodhouse Grange by 24 runs to win the npower Village Cup at a chilly and almost deserted Lord's. An anchor innings of 66 from Ed Young backed by some hostile quick bowling from Scott Jarvis proved too much for the defending champions.

Valley End started well despite losing Durandt for a quickfire 22. Paul Williams and Young, the latter with some lovely straight drives, kept the scoreboard ticking along and after 20 overs the Surrey side were well placed on 89 for 1. But the drinks interval checked their progress, and the next ten overs produced only 29 runs. Inevitably, the pressure told and a flurry of wickets, all to catches searching for the elusive big hit, brought Woodhouse Grange right back into the game. Young and Williams added 103 for the second wicket before three wickets fell for four runs.

Eventually, Young ran out of steam and, after being dropped from successive balls off the generally impressive Tom Quinn , he was stumped in the next over off Nick Hadfield for 66. After looking set for a score well over 200, Valley End only got close to that thanks to their last five overs which produced 45, the highlight being a lovely six over long-on from Chris Peploe.

Woodhouse Grange, who cruised past a target of 220 a year ago, lost Hadfield, their top scorer then, in the third over but looked to have weathered a no-holds-barred assault from Valley End's seamers, who bowled with venom but waywardness, conceding 11 wides in the first 12 overs.

Jarvis was the pick on the bunch. Steaming in from the Pavilion End, he had Dwyer caught behind gloving a leg-side bouncer, and came within a whisker of winning a leg-before shout against Burdett next ball. Soon after he earned a warning for a beamer that sailed some way over the batsman's head. There is no doubting his ability and he bowled at a pace which would leave most club batsmen heading for cover. He would not have been remotely out of his depth in tomorrow's Cockspur Cup final.

The jitters in the Yorkshiremen's camp became more serious when Jonathan Bean top-edged Tom Nevin's second ball to square leg, and then Jarvis bowled Mark Burdett for 7. Joel Hughes somehow survived a raucous caught-behind appeal after being cut in half by the next ball and Valley End were in the driving seat.

As the asking rate eased above a run-a-ball, Woodhouse Grange had no choice but to start taking chances. Hughes was well caught above his head by Peploe (all-too-briefly described as "Mummy's Little Soldier" by the electronic scoreboard) in front of the Tavern, and Nevin picked up his third wicket when Ben Kingsnorth, who had a good day with bat and gloves, completed a neat stumping to remove Andrew Bilton.

Valley End eased up within sight of victory and Woodhouse Grange, all but down and out on 91 for 6, benefited from some sloppy fielding and ordinary bowling. They were, however, too far off the pace for it to seriously threaten the outcome. A seventh-wicket stand of 44 ended when Rudd failed to clear Ian Guest at long-on, and that was pretty much that.

Steve Burdett kept his side's dreams flickering with a belligerent 59, but the prize was always just beyond him even if he had he found support from the tail. The end came soon after he had perished to another good catch at long-on from Peploe.

It was a deserved victory for Valley End, but it will be tempered by the knowledge that rumoured rule changes, as the competition strives to avoid becoming the haunt of club rather than village cricketers, might leave them struggling to defend their crown. It would be harsh on them were they to be sucked into that debate. While they have a few players who take part in other leagues, they tend to be their own cricketers who have come good.

Another dampener was that the scheduling of the game on a Monday, allied to a decision by MCC to charge admission for the first time, meant that the crowd was a fraction of the 2000-odd who attended last year.